


graveyard's animate clay

by LRMatthews



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Related to that Tuesday, you know the one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 17:32:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1436809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LRMatthews/pseuds/LRMatthews
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What he doesn’t remember but his body seems to is the hundreds of other deaths in countless ways, ways his conscious mind knows nothing about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	graveyard's animate clay

**Author's Note:**

> Title adapted from a line in "Herbert West - Re-animator."
> 
> Set post-season 5.

He’s fine.  There’s no question about it.  
     
He dreams sometimes.  Everybody does.  The normal scene-shifting, non-sequitur absurdities that make perfect sense until you wake up “the fuck was that?”  
  
He dreams about Lisa, about Ben.  That’s nothing new, he’s been doing that for years except now he has reality to add fodder and mostly they’re more like memories.  Which sucks.  Almost more than the nightmares.  
  
(He wonders if Sam still dreams about Jess.)  
  
 _Almost_ more than the nightmares.  
  
Of course he has nightmares.  Their kind of work he’d have to be some kind of psycho not to.  (Or dead inside, ha ha.)  There’s the usual fare:  Darkness holding an evil Something, coming for him.  Innocents dying while he stands by, unable to save them.  Fire.  The many and varied torments and deaths of Lisa, Ben.  Bobby.  Dad.  Mom.  Sammy.  He’s made his peace with these – what else can he do?  As long as there is anyone left who matters to him he’ll live with that fear.  
  
What he _hasn’t_ made peace with is the other nightmares, the ones about him.  Obviously he dreams about himself dying – it’s generally the feature presentation.  God knows he’s done enough damage to this body, even after the clean slate left by Cas’s Get Out of Hell Free grab.  New scars from cuts, burns, tears, gunshot.  And of course the impression of Cas’s giant freaking mitt (which, it had taken him almost a year to realize, grows warm when Cas is nearby).  
  
The problem with these nightmares is that they’re _not_ just nightmares.  They’re memories.  He’s pretty sure they are, anyway.  He remembers, vividly, his flesh being torn into by hideously hooked claws and bluntly efficient teeth, digging into his legs and belly, peeling strips of skin and muscle, shifting organs, his blood dying his clothes in new shades.  He remembers being shot, pumped full of tiny balls of lead, piercing him with hundreds of infinitesimal holes, through skin, through bone, through his heart and lungs and stomach (and he had been so _angry_ because they did Sam first, _his_ Sammy, and he was going to make those sons-of-bitches _pay_ when he got back, in blood and pain, justifications be damned).  
  
These he remembers.  What he _doesn’t_ remember but his _body_ seems to is the _hundreds_ of other deaths in countless ways, ways his conscious mind knows nothing about.  Sam had told him about Gabriel’s sick little game, though never went into detail about what exactly had happened or how many times.  His only clue is the nightmares that pop up often enough to be irritating.  
  
An implacable force that feels like the Chrysler building simultaneously crumples his body and flings it into the air.  He’s vaguely aware of the thing passing under him and then he hits the ground.  Everything is sort of distorted and what remains of his sensible brain is telling him he’s going into shock.  Also that his bones are shattered and stabbing delicate things inside of him and this is _not good_ …  The pain takes a bit longer to come and when it does he’s utterly overwhelmed.  All the slams and throws and falls he’s taken in his life and he’s _never_ felt like this, this crushed, ruined, broken, shattered….  
  
Pure energy fires through his body from his fingers down to his toes.  He’s felt this before, but not to this degree, not this long, not this powerfully.  His muscles seize as his nerves signal uncontrollably, every fibre so tight, so rigid he’s sure he’s going to snap something.  He can’t breathe, can barely even think about breathing, and he’s vaguely aware it’s because his heart has stopped and how long can that go on?...  
  
It’s been so cold in this damn box and he long ago gave up trying to kick the door open or break it open with a short pipe he ripped from the floor.  That was before, of course, his fingers got so numb that he couldn’t hold on to it anymore, couldn’t feel them at all.  He had been shivering violently just a bit ago, so hard his jaw ached from his teeth chattering.  Everything aches.  But at least the shivering’s stopped and now he’s just tired.  And maybe a little warmer.  Yeah, it _is_ warmer.  About time.  Maybe Sammy’ll find him soon.  He’ll just take his jacket off, use it for a pillow, wait for Sammy….  
  
He’s pretty sure his insides are on fire and they’re doing their damnedest to flee by way of his mouth.  He vomits again, a brief respite from the last about five minutes ago, all bile and acid.  It’s hard to hit the bucket when he’s curled up on his side like this but it _hurts_ so damn bad he just can’t straighten out and God the look on Sam’s face, he shouldn’t have to see this, shouldn’t have to be here.  The vomit comes again and this time it’s not just bile and acid, this time crimson flecks decorate the bucket.  Then a whole wash of crimson.  It’s just too much, too much….  
  
And who the _hell_ puts a fancy-ass rope in a bathroom like this?  Of _course_ someone’s going to trip, and of _course_ someone’s going to go head-first into it, get all twisted up and stuck and he’s going to _kick someone’s ass_ , but first he has to get undone.  Except it’s really tight under his jaw and he can’t get his fingers under it and where the hell is his knife?  In his boot, he can’t reach it and he can’t breathe and his vision's purpling out and his ears are ringing and he can’t even call for help – no one seems to hear his stamping and the ringing is so _loud_ ….  
  
The thing is he’s getting older, starting to feel it like he never did before.  Hunting’s not conducive to a long, healthy life and sure, there’re guys like Bobby who’ve been around longer than some but that’s mostly by getting out of the physical part of the game.  He’s not as quick to recover anymore, not as swift to heal, to bounce back, take a hit.  And these nightmares….  There are times he wakes up from them and his heart palpitates and he can’t breathe and it’s not because he’s afraid – it’s because his body has forgotten how.  It’s forgotten how to live.  It always passes before anything happens, but he’s just waiting for the day it doesn’t, waiting for the day his body decides it’s done.  
  
Sometimes … sometimes he thinks about letting it go.  Why not?  He’s gotten redemption, he knows exactly where he’s going.  And what is he anymore?  Not John’s son, not Sam’s brother.  Not Michael’s vessel.  He didn’t fit as Lisa’s husband or Ben’s father, either.  Yeah, Sam’s still here, but – would it matter?  Sam would be fine without him and he knows where Sam is going, too.  So what does it matter?  
  
Except there are still ugly evil sons-of-bitches to take down, and as long as there are and as long as his body still functions … well, this is it.  Even if he’s not really sure why.  Even if, every day, he wonders ( _fears_ ) if his body will forget.  
  
“Dean.  You okay, man?”  
  
He quirks a half-smile, keeps the tired out of his eyes.  “Yeah, Sammy.”  
  
He’s fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written Apr. 2011


End file.
